Courmisch

I may be clueless but isn't JAL the largest player here? AFAICT, BA has just two 777 services from/to Tokyo daily. Or does the JV only cover HEL and LHR on the European side?

intuition

JAL has 12% of traffic Japan-Europe while Finnair has 8%. So yes, JAL is the larger player. BA has 4%.

Strange how they let BA decide all.

remymartin

au contraire, juan. I think this is very much on-topic.

intuition

I cannot book AY code on JAL.com. They mostly list JL-flights, including a vast number of codeshares. But no AY flightnuber as far as I can see.

intuition

And since most here don't earn on AY, maybe I need to explain: this is important because if it is not AY code, the earning is half of what it would have been. Personally, I'm not interested to earn 125% of miles when I can earn 250%.

intuition

As for the I-fares that cannot be combined with AY on both in&outbound when there is BA-availability, this seems to be a trouble with AY webpage. I have now found example itineraries where some OTAs can book all segments on AY flights and still do fare calculation with I.

Still extremely annoying, and not sure if it is a bug or intended behaviour. Pushing people to use TA for simple bookings is money lost (both for AY and me).

reflektia

I had 100% tickets when flying to New York in may. Finnair site is showing only those flexible tickets, but it seems that travel agents can book 100% tickets.

Benzin

What is the point of this? I've been booking my own tickets for years. Now I should call a travel agent? Like Kaleva or something? "Computer says no"?

reflektia

Company policy.

Courmisch

I think there are two points. On the one hand, the new fare structure is most certainly required by the terms of the joint venture. and the website just follows. On the other hand, the Finnair "value" fare has almost no advantage over the joint venture "saver" fare, except for the mileage; so the value fare would now be of interest to much fewer customers than it previously was.

Benzin

And if I want to get better miles I need to call a travel agent? How 80's..! "Designed for You", HAH! Hey Reflektia, was the price for your 100% ticket about the same as the Value ticket used to be, just 20-30 EUR more expensive as the cheapest Basic?

intuition

I have noticed quite a few difference in the JV fares compared to AY fares. Did you spot something too? We can list it here, if there are difference that one need to watch out for:


Fee for change/cancel
Business saver ticket used to have a 25% cancel fee and a 150€ change fee. On the JV fares the change and cancel fee is flat 200€.
So if you are on cheaper fares the semi-flexibility is much more expensive now than before. If you are on a high price business saver and wants to cancel the fee is substantially reduced.

Fees waived
Rules for waived fees are much more strict. Death in family is not included in reasons for waiving cancel fee anymore.
'Denied visa' is no longer included either, which makes buying ticket on "speculation" very risky. For anyone being citizen of countries with 'visa on arrival-agreement' the change doesn't matter, but for other citizens this is big trouble.

Refunds
Old fare rules stated explicitly that UNUSED YR/YQ FEES WILL BE REFUNDED. This rule has been removed. I'm not sure if that means that YR/YQ never is refunded or what.

Re-routing
Rerouting was specifically not allowed in the old fare rules, the JV fares allow more changes : A CHANGE IS A DATE/FLIGHT/ROUTING/BOOKING CODE CHANGE.

Name change
Old rules allowed for name change, but this rule has been removed. It is unclear to me what is allowed on JV fares, it says
TICKET IS NOT TRANSFERABLE TO ANOTHER PERSON
and also
NAME CHANGE ON AY/BE OPERATED FLIGHTS - CONTACT CARRIER FOR DETAILS

Some name correction (spelling) is allowed but only on AY-flights?

NoWindowSeat

This is not directly JV related but as I do not like unnecessary topics I steal this a bit...I thought I knew everything about OW reservation systems/codes etc. that an ordinary traveler should know...clearly my "ego is writing checks my body can't cash" (legendary movie quote).

Anyway, I have an AA booking on AY metal (and solely on AY metal) but I cannot find the AY/Amadeus booking ref. from any normal source..naturally I can always call AY but thought some (more educated!) expert here knows the answer

Thanks,

remymartin

AA has their own res system with alphabet IDs. Afaik you would need to call AA, not AY.

NoWindowSeat

Yes I know the difference in systems, they use Sabre, AFAIK, not Amadeus. Most likely also AY can see it by name/date/flight details but I just thought if there's some secret online tool somewhere